Lots of honeybees this year-Yea!! Very few hornworms yea again!!! I have already located a few praying mantis,I love having those around.Not enough ladybugs therefore too many aphids. It seems every year my little ecosystem changes for the better. Hopefully something I am doing right.

So far I definitely have less bad bugs. I have only had one hornworm and far fewer stink bugs, leaf-foots and cucumber beetles. Mosquitoes also seem way down. As for bees and pollinators, there are good numbers. I think the sudden late cold snap did many in and the drought has kept the mosquitoes in check.

No hornworms (yet), my biggest pest is grasshoppers right now, they seem to thrive in dry years.

Also a ton of earwigs, not in the tomatoes, but overrunning my cabbage-y, leafy stuff, I use drip irrigation (thank goodness) and rain has been really rare, but the little buggers must be desperate for any dewy moisture that collects. They're competing with the cabbage worms for making the biggest poop piles for me to clean out of the axils... Overnite soaks are a must!

A few stink bugs, jap beetles, no real damage yet. (knocking on my noggin just now)

Well anney,
As you might expect coming from me the pests seem to be worse so far. Tomato hornworms, flea beetles, Vine borers decimated my squash and now still the mystery worm. I did find what looks like pinworm tunnels in my tomato leaves. The good thing so far is that the tomatoes have seemed to outgrow the pest, so far...
Tim

I don't know if it's because I haven't sprayed for weed control on my lawn the last few years, but there's alot of clover in my lawn. I definatally have seen many more honey bees this year than in past years. I'm in the rural area. Also haven't had to mow the grass for the last 3 weeks due to lack of rain. No substancial precp for 6-8 weeks.

I seem to be having less as well. A few aphids/black gnats but safer soap and tabacco tea are keeping them in check. I also really cleaned out the garden area of weeds this year and keeping it clean of them.

I do have a critter living under my shed that loves my broccoli. Don't know what it is, but have some traps out for it.

Bill S

Speaking of honeybees, mine are overflowing the hive with honey...i think they may have swarmed earlier (divided themselves and flew off with new queens to make new hives who-knows-where), but there's a good strong queen in the hive now.

My other hive died in early spring, but i think the queen just wasn't strong enough to make it through the winter, and they weren't able to replace her in the weird warm/cold oscillations we had. This is my first year beekeeping, so i'm more of a 'bee-haver' than a beekeeper, but i'm learning.

I'd still guess if you have more honeybees it's because one of your neighbors (up to a few miles away) has taken up beekeeping.

I found lots of mantis egg cases last year, and have seen several juveniles....also had a bizarre invasion of red admiral butterflies mid-june, seriously, they carpeted my driveway, filled up my shadehouse, laid in piles where they were killed along the highway. Even a few miles away, there weren't unusual numbers, just right in this 'neighborhood'. I don't have a single nettle on my three acres, so i really don't know where they came from...

No honeybees here but very few pests too when compared to a normal year. No hornworms, very few stink bugs on the tomatoes, fair amount of flea beetles on the eggplants but no real damage, and minimal squash bugs. Now I'm waiting to see if the annual blister beetle bunch show up. They are usually my worst pest problem. :(

Maybe the late heavy freeze we got that killed so many of the honeybees at least had the benefit of killing many of the pests too.

Dave

I forgot to mention that I have had absolutely no bean beetles and they usually are well on their way gobbling up my first crop of bush beans by now (I don't spray green beans because I harvest too often).

It has been a really strange year here in Texas. Late freeze and snow, unprecedented rains, flooding etc. Now the rains have let up some and there are droves of mosquitoes, probably the worst that I have ever seen. Other than that, I have found one tomato horn worm and had one bunch of tomatoes in half barrel containers in a group that has been plagued with the brown stink bugs, not a bunch all at once but a few persistent ones. None of the leaf footed stink bugs that usually arrive with the hot, dry weather here. They may come when the weather gets hot and dry, as usual. I see lots of little grass hoppers in the grass in the yard, but no problems with them in the garden thus far. Some things have done well, I got lots of green beans, black eyed peas and tomatoes and the fig tree is really loaded down.

I did see friends of mime from my little ol home town on t.v. about a month ago that were really plagued with grass hoppers, they had stripped their sweet corn and most of their garden, but that is about 60 miles east of me.

Hopefully, things will return more to normal around here and I can have some kind of a fall garden.
Bill P.

No hornworms or any other bugs to speak of. I attribute it to the wren that set up home in a nest box right next to my garden. The only issue has been the flea beetles on the eggplant. I almost lost them but they seem to be coming around.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden Blog

Lots of honeybees, but being a beekeeper helps :)

Lots of bumblebees this year. Lots of squash bugs, stink bugs, and leaf-footed bugs, but also lots of frogs and toads, and I think that is helping keep them in check. Lots of cuke beetles earlier, but I think the dragonflies have them under control because I see no damage from them. Two hornworms so far, but I don't worry too much about them because they cause little damage in small numbers. Gillions of butterflies and dragonflies. Gillions of grasshoppers too, but I seem to be gaining on bird numbers that eat them, so they haven't caused major problems yet. A few aphids, almost no ladybugs this year. The stinkbugs are in the tomatoes again, but don't seem to be causing as much damage as usual. And lots of barn spiders- they have webs everywhere and I am constantly running into them. I love spiders, but I don't like their webs- at least not on me :)
Mrs H

A very wet summer here, and the aphids were everywhere, but more than normal ladybugs helped.

Grasshoppers have eaten my bush beans--they've never been a problem before--but I've yet to see the dreaded blister beetles. I hope I don't, but imagine I will.

Lots of beneficials this year, and few hornworms. My cuke blossoms are abuzz with pollinators of all kinds, thank goodness. About the same number of stinkbugs but very few cucumber beetles.

Leigh

Swarms of flea beetles, all over the yard. Spiders in and out of the house, like an outtake of Arachnophobia. Ditto earwigs. And tons of grasshoppers leaping out of the way every time I take a step.

I've seen bees and wasps, but not quite as many as last year. Now that they've eaten the aphids on my cherry tree, the ladybugs seem to have left for greener pastures.

It's been a very buggy year. I wonder if the wet winter and spring combined with a hot summer has increased their numbers here.

Way less of all insects in general, compared to the last few seasons. I am NOT complaining.

I haven't seen a single tomato insect problem this year. But it has been very dry. I'm almost worried that if there are no tomato hornworms, my local population of hornworm parisitizers will all die out this year! I can't decide whether this is long-term good or bad...